Automobile conspiracies
By Daniel G. Jennings
web posted April 28, 2003
Like the American Right in the 1950s and the American Left in
the present-day, advocates of rail-transit in the United States
have become obsessed by conspiracy theories. Instead of
working to create new transit systems or lobbying for more
money from the government, rail backers, new urbanists and
auto critics spend much of their time charting and plotting
conspiracies. Worse, they often refuse to take action to make
many of their dreams come true because they are afraid of an
imaginary boogeyman called the "highway lobby."
A quick visit to the web sites of many transit advocates verifies
this obsession with conspiracy theories. The websites of transit
advocates are full of conspiracy theory talk, complete with charts
and graphs that demonstrate how certain highway contractors
are funding think tanks that issue anti-transit propaganda. Essays
point out the connections between transit foes and large
corporations that have historically opposed transit. And there are
plenty of history lessons about how General Motors and
Standard Oil of California (Chevron) ripped out the trolley lines
in many American cities.
As with all good conspiracy theories there is quite a bit of truth
to this talk. A lot of people have gotten rich off of highway
contracting and car companies, and highway contractors and
others do spend big money to finance anti-transit lobbying and
propaganda. And, yes, big oil and Detroit did conspire to
destroy the streetcars.
The problem is that transit backers seem to be spending all or
most of their time on these conspiracy theories. Instead of going
out and making their case to the public or lobbying elected
representatives for more funding, transit backers are sitting in
front of computers banging out conspiracy theory stories. In
particular, they spend much of their time warning the public
about an evil, all-powerful monster known as the "Highway
Lobby" that can influence government and kill transit projects
with the blink of an eye.
Yes, the highway lobby is real but it's far from all-powerful. If the
highway lobby is so powerful, why have more than a dozen
cities, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Denver, San Diego, San Jose,
Dallas, Portland, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Newark, Sacramento,
San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington D.C., built new rail
transit lines in the last twenty years? Why are cities like Houston,
Minneapolis, Seattle, Las Vegas and Charlotte building new rail
lines? The highway lobby was unable to stop massive new light
rail and subway projects all over the country. If the highway
lobby is so powerful, why couldn't it stop Congress from
appropriating billions of dollars to pay for new rail lines and
voters from approving new rail lines in several cities. In Seattle,
voters even approved a monorail project.
The highway lobby is far from unbeatable. When transit backers
are prepared to enter the political arena and fight, they can win.
Such victories take hard work, getting out the vote, meeting with
political officials, petition campaigns and other political work.
Unfortunately, sitting around and griping about the evil highway
lobby conspiracy is a lot easier than campaigning for new transit
systems.
Transit backers today are like conservatives were in the 1950s.
They spend all of their time talking about conspiracy theories,
and get nothing accomplished. When the conservatives forgot all
about conspiracy theories in the 1960s and started working for
real political change, they started to make real accomplishments.
If transit backers can learn to forego their fascination with
conspiracy theories and start to work in earnest to accomplish
real change, I predict that they will be able to win big, getting
dozens of new rail transit lines built all over the United States.
Daniel G. Jennings is a freelance writer and journalist who lives
and works in Denver, CO. He has worked as a reporter and
editor for daily and weekly newspapers in five states.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com